Masterpiece Mystery! Sherlock: The Great Game on WXXI-TV

Masterpiece Mystery! Sherlock: The Great Game on WXXI-TV

Sherlock must solve perplexing and dangerous puzzles specifically laid out for him.

Sherlock pits his wits against a devilishly clever bomber, who straps explosives to innocent people and has them call the detective with a series of baffling mysteries to solve. A twenty-year-old murder; a blood-soaked car; a lost painting worth millions of dollars—it’s just the kind of adventure our hero relishes, but who is the evil genius behind this deadly game?

Blowing away the fog of the Victorian era, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective Sherlock Holmes enters the 21st century in a thrilling contemporary version. A massive hit when it aired this summer in the UK, Sherlock stars Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement, The Last Enemy) in the title role, and premieres with three criminally clever whodunits in Masterpiece Mystery!Sherlock: The Great Game on airs Sunday, November 7 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV/HD (DT 21.1/cable 1011 and 11).

Created by the celebrated story-telling team of Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, Coupling) and Mark Gatiss (Doctor Who, The League of Gentlemen), Sherlock co-stars Martin Freeman (The Off ice UK, Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy) as Dr. John Watson, Holmes’s best (and only!) friend. Just as in the Conan Doyle original, John is a retired army doctor, wounded during service in Afghanistan. A chance encounter brings him into the strange and thrilling world of Sherlock Holmes whose cases he begins to write up – as online blogs.

This is a brand new Sherlock made by people who love the original stories, so each adventure is packed full of details, places, idiosyncrasies, plot elements, phrases, each with its own 21st-century twist. For example, the first episode, A Study in Pink, includes the clue, “Rache,” which was pivotal in the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887. But beware! Each mystery is fiendishly new.

The cast also features Rupert Graves (The Forsyte Saga, God on Trial) as Inspector Lestrade—the best Scotland Yard cop there is, but a man wise enough to know when to call in the consulting detective that his staff call “freak.”